Women, Human Rights and Global Transformations

Catalog description

Women, Human Rights and Global Transformations is a seminar style, graduate course that engages global human rights issues and interdisciplinary research from diverse fields, including anthropology, philosophy, history, education, and law. The course focuses on scholarship and activism around human rights abuses in times of war and peace and the movements that rise in response. It is designed to bring together the distinct voices of artists, advocates, scholars, and survivors. Diverse course material offers practical and theoretical approaches to women’s and girls’ rights with a particular focus on transnational feminism, storytelling, and online social movements as sources of global transformation. Grounded in feminist theories, we explore systems of historical domination and modes of resistance and alliance. Weekly readings ask students to analyze human rights documents, curricula, websites, and YA novels alongside academic literature and public scholarship. We also engage with a range of multimedia sources, including music, poetry, and film. This course aims to be a deeply reflective and highly engaged academic experience. Students complete public-facing assignments and undertake individualized final projects to be shared in an end-of-semester symposium.